Dabel Brothers Publishing will launch a six-shot miniseries based on George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series in April. The new miniseries, titled George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards: The Hard Call, will be written by Daniel Abraham with art by Eric Battle. It will eventually be collected into book format, and distributed by Del Rey (see 'Dabels Go to Del Rey').
The story is set in present day, with new victims of the Wild Card virus at a high school in
The Wild Cards property originated in 1987 with an anthology of stories by a group of science fiction writers including Martin, Roger Zelazny, Chris Claremont, and others, and went on to account for seventeen anthologies, novels, and mosaic novels; a short-lived comic series from Marvel; and RPG adaptations by Steve Jackson Games as part of its GURPS system. The storyline was based on an alien virus striking earth in 1946 and killing most who were exposed to it. Survivors were either monstrously deformed 'jokers,' or superpower-endowed 'aces.'
There's other new activity on the property in addition to the new Dabel Brothers comic series (and eventual graphic novel). Tor has announced a new three-book series, which will kick off this month with Wild Cards: Inside Straight. Future volumes will be released annually. And Green Ronin will launch a new line of Wild Cards RPG books this year for its Mutants and Masterminds system. The first release in that line, Wild Cards Campaign Setting, by John Jos. Miller, will launch at Gen Con 2008.